Left
by birdywings
Summary: The problem with playing hide-and-seek with your sister was that sometimes she got bored and stopped looking for you. But, even after all this time, Cath was still seeking... even if Wren wasn't hiding anymore. (Fangirl told from both Cath and Wren's POV)
1. Preface

Left

Preface

The problem with playing hide-and-seek with your sister was that sometimes she got bored and stopped looking for you.

And there you were—under the couch, in the closet, wedged behind the lilac tree—and you didn't want to give up, because maybe she was just biding her time. But maybe she'd wandered off.… Maybe she was downstairs watching TV and eating the rest of the Pringles.

You waited. You waited until you forgot that you were waiting, until you forgot that there was anything to you beyond stillness and quiet; an ant crawled over your knee, and you didn't flinch. And it didn't matter whether she was coming for you or not—the hiding was enough. (You won when no one found you, even if they weren't looking.)

When you broke from behind the tree, it was because you wanted to. It was the first breath after a long dive. Branches snapped under your feet, and the world was hotter and brighter...

 _Ready or not, here I come._

But the other problem with playing hide-and-seek was that your sister was likely better at hiding than you were at seeking. So you might not have always been able to find her before she got bored of waiting for the game to end (she never played by anyone else's rules other than her own, after all).

Which was the situation Cath was still in; ten years later, she was still playing the same old game of hide-and-seek she'd been playing her whole life. And yet, it still wasn't enough time for her to find her sister before she got bored of playing by someone else's rules.

But after all this time, Cath was still seeking even if Wren wasn't hiding anymore.

 _Her_ _e I come, ready or not._

* * *

 **Greetings fellow Rainbow fans!**

 **I am a huge fan of Rowell and love all her books to bits and pieces as much as any Rainbow fanatic out there. However, the one thing I would have always preferred was a dual-narrative of Fangirl between both Cath _and_ Wren, so this is basically my vision of how it would go. This story is bound to include parts told from the book (sorry, but it can't be helped!) but will also feature a few chapters about Cath and Wren's childhood prior to their parents separation and what growing up through all of it was like for them.**

 **In this story I really hope to explore the parts of Fangirl that we've never seen and perhaps even shed a little light on Wren's character along the way.**

 **Anyway, leave reviews if you would like to see more and feel free to check out my Eleanor and Park and Fangirl crossover _Crossing The Skies,_ my Eleanor and Park epilogue _Nothing Ever Ends,_ and my Carry On oneshot _Ha_ _ndkerchiefs_**

 ** _-_ birdywings**


	2. Chapter One

Chapter One

Cath

"Fifty-seven... fifty-eight... fifty-nine... sixty. Ready or not, here I come!"

Cath stepped out from behind the tree she was counting against and into the sunshine - she had learned long ago that it was always great for leaning against, plus it was one of the very few shady spots left in their yard that scorching July afternoon, and she'd always been so susceptible to sun-burns.

Squinting hard against the sun's merciless glare, she scanned the yard for all its possible hiding places, because just when she thought she'd had them all memorized, Wren always managed to find yet another that Cath didn't know about, (she always was one step ahead of her even when Cath was still two behind).

She huffed loudly, partly to blow her sweaty bangs away from her sticky forehead but mostly to express her distaste for this unbearable and inhumane heat. It was so hot that Cath decided the earth shouldn't even be allowed to heat up this much, and that she should have listened to her mother when she reminded her to apply her sunscreen before going out to play.

But she supposed it was too late to listen to her now, (she could already feel her skin beginning to peel as it was). So it was then that Cath made a promise to always listen to what her mother told her, because mothers always knew what was best didn't they?

Finally, Cath rolled up her sleeves, careful not to touch the already pink and tender skin on her shoulders, and began what she knew was going to be a long search for her sister, because Wren was always better at hiding than Cath was at seeking... even long after they'd stopped playing the same game.

* * *

Wren

Wren shuffled her legs beneath her in an attempt to gain feeling once more in her feet but managed only to knock her head against the underside of the deck.

"Argh!" She groaned, not even caring if Cath heard her and was led right to her hiding spot, (she never knew them all anyway, so a helping hand might not be such a bad thing to lend, especially since she'd already been crouching here for who knew how long).

She inched toward the edge of the deck and peered through the openings in the skirting for any sign of her sister. And sure enough, Cath was nowhere to be seen and no closer to finding her. But wasn't that the point of hiding? Did you not win when no one could find you? Was the satisfaction not in hiding better than the finder could seek?

Maybe it was once, but Wren was tired of playing the same old games by the same old rules. Because what fun was the game when you'd been playing so long no one was even keeping score anymore? What fun was it when nobody won and nobody lost? What fun was it when you'd been hiding so long you'd forgotten you were still waiting to be found?

Wren was always better at hiding than Cath was at seeking... even when they weren't playing the same game anymore.

* * *

Cath

Cath hated seeking, but she bet that Wren hated hiding even more. And that seemed to be the only thought that kept her going as she searched high and low, left and right, forwards and backwards, and every which way there was to think of.

And yet, she only came up with an extensive list of where Wren _wasn't:_ She wasn't behind the BBQ or up any of the trees or amongst the garbage cans. She wasn't underneath the patio table or any of the chairs, she hadn't even wedged herself in the cupboard where they stored all the cushions they never seemed to use for the chairs or wound herself inside the hammock.

Had the sisters played this redundant little game of theirs on an even slightly cooler day, perhaps Cath would be in more of seeking mood but now all she could think of was what remained of the popsicles from the BBQ their parents had hosted for some friends last weekend... and how tired she was of playing this game by somebody else's rules.

* * *

Wren

Wren hated hiding, but she bet that Cath hated seeking even more. And that was just about the only thought that kept her right where she crouched in the dirt with a stomach rumbling so loudly it was a miracle Cath hadn't been drawn right to her half and hour ago and a bladder so full she thought that if Cath didn't find her sooner her shorts would only burst if she didn't get to a toilet later.

Wren would be lying if she said she wasn't at least a little tempted to help Cath out. She was practically already spoon-feeding her whereabouts to her as it was by unwinding one of her bumblebee encrusted hairclips from her tousled brown locks and wedging it between the cracks in the deck on which Cath was currently pacing.

They had the same barrettes - bumblebees for Wren and ladybugs for Cath. Their mom bought a pair for each of them for their fifth birthday, and neither daughter could recall the last day they wore their hair without them or any day since. Wren was always their mother's little bumblebee, striped in bold black and yellow and buzzing with a temper that could sting anyone, and Cath was always her little ladybug, spotted in subtle black and red and so silent that everybody often forgot to listen for her.

Her stomach rumbled again and she would have remembered to try to silence it to avoid discovery if only it didn't remind her of the almost-empty box of popsicles currently sitting in their freezer. And somehow, the thought of them only made Wren hate hiding more.

* * *

Cath

She felt something crack beneath her shoe and winced at the sound of it, hoping whatever it was wasn't important. She moved her foot and peered down at it only to discover to her dismay that it was one of Wren's matching bumblebee barrettes, but also to her delight that she could see her sister's eyes staring right back at her through the cracks in the deck.

"Found you." She smirked, because victory was always sweet even long after the game was over and everyone forgot you were still playing.

* * *

Wren

"Sure you did." Wren retorted, because, as her sister, it was practically her duty to remind Cath that she couldn't always win even when she'd already won.

She shimmied out from underneath the deck, unable to remember how she even managed to wedge herself beneath it in the first place as she did so, and met Cath on the steps.

"Can we play something else now? I'm tired of hide-and-seek, I'm always seeking when we play it." Cath whined, because she didn't know how not to.

"Getting bored already?" Wren asked with a nudge and a face as tight as they came to avoid revealing that she was probably just as bored stupid and weary from the heat as Cath was.

"I just want to play a different game." She pouted.

"Hmm," Wren hummed, pretending to put more thought into her next idea than was necessary, (it had been on her mind for almost as long as she had been crouching after all).

"I know a game we can play,"

Cath's face immediately brightened.

"One that will both cool us down and fill our rumbling tummies."

"Would this game involve the freezer by any chance?" Cath asked, quick to catch on because she had always been wicked smart.

"Not the freezer exactly but, rather, what's _in_ it."

"Popsicle-eating contest?"

"You're on."

And into the house they raced, elbowing and jostling each other the way only siblings would as they wrestled their way into the house.

Together, they yanked the freezer open and out of it spilled the cool air as they felt around for the box. Their hands eagerly clamped around it and dragged it out onto the floor where they emptied it of the two remaining popsicles.

"Okay," Wren said once the wrappers were shed. "Ready,"

"Set,"

"Go!"

They simultaneously shoved their popsicles into their mouths, their lips and sticky fingers turning orange and purple as they soon disappeared from their sticks and into their bellies.

Their parents would undoubtedly scold them for spoiling their dinner so, but could the temptation really be helped? Didn't every kid spoil their dinner at least once or perhaps twice if we were all being honest? Was it not worth the sticky mess and laughter afterwards? Did life not taste all the more sweet when the rules were bent or broken? Wasn't that why rules were lain in the first place? To be bent and broken by mischievous children who knew better but didn't know any better?

Cath and Wren had known better, but they were never really good at listening to what their parents told them even when they knew what was best.

* * *

 **Hey guys,**

 **Sorry for the wait! I was honestly a little stumped on how to continue after the prologue but I think I've figured out how I want this story to go, so I hope you like what you see so far!**

 **Thank you to Jcathwren for he favorite! Please feel free to leave review on what you did and didn't like and to check out my Fangirl and E &P crossover, my E&P epilogue, and my Carry On oneshot.**

 **More to come soon!**

 **-birdywings**


	3. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Cath

She woke up to the sound of voices. No, not voices, the sound of them shouting more like, and they weren't trying all that hard to be quiet either. But she always woke up like this, she was a light sleeper after all - or at least she became one since all the fighting started. All the fighting and the shouting and the yelling and the crying and the apologizing that usually came afterward...

But tonight there was no apologizing. Tonight the fighting and the shouting and the yelling were followed by nothing but the tears being cried behind doors that hadn't opened for as long as she could remember.

And Cath always had a good memory, or a better one than Wren at least. But she was never as brave as Wren, not by a long shot. And she couldn't be as brave as her tonight. Not while she was listening to her mother cry from behind her bedroom door like she was never going to stop.

* * *

Wren

The fighting started early tonight, which was strange - they usually tried to wait until Cath and Wren were asleep, or at least until they were sure the girls were whispering and giggling loud enough that they wouldn't be able to hear them. Because that's exactly what the sisters did when they went to bed like they were supposed to but lay wide awake like they weren't supposed to; if one of them couldn't sleep, then neither of them would. But tonight, they just couldn't seem to wait, and they weren't trying to be all that quiet either. And Wren was just starting to drift off too...

She could hear them shouting through the floor, their harsh words being thrown around the room as if no one was listening. And Wren wondered if their parents ever really bothered listening to themselves. Because, from what she had to listen to most nights, they sounded worse than she and Cath did when they fought over the tire swing in their backyard or the last of the cookies or their clothes, which didn't make the least bit of sense since everything they owned matched.

But the point was, their parents sounded like a couple of kids fighting at the playground. And Wren could only groan so loudly or press the pillow so hard against her ears to try to shut them out. It was a terrible thing to admit, but she sometimes slept right through the arguing. She supposed she had to if she was ever going to sleep a wink in this house. For her, their tense words were now no more than a lullaby. But for Cath, they were her waking nightmare.

But tonight, sleep could find neither sister. And already at eight o'clock the night was beginning to look like a long one as they spent it staring up at their water-stained ceiling in the semi-darkness. Wren could just make out the ugly shade of brown the great big blotches were from their nightlight - Cath wouldn't sleep without one, and it wasn't because she was afraid the boogieman would pay them a visit in the dark but because the memory of your sister locking you in the pitch-blackness of your musty old cob-webbed basement never quite left you.

By now the heat of the argument had passed and their voices slowly began to die out into the stillness of the house, because they hadn't had enough for the night so much as of each other. There was nothing left for them to say because what point was there in apologizing anymore when they had meant every word? They simply just dropped it for the night as they left the room and each other in tears; he for the dusty old couch in the basement, which probably hadn't seen a person's butt for the better half of ten years, and she for their bedroom. And for a moment after she swung the door closed all was quiet, until the tears began to fall.

She could hear their mom from next door, sobbing just loud enough to hear through the thin walls making up this pathetic excuse for a happy home. And their dad was no better. In fact, he was probably worse than their mother when it came to keeping it together, because there couldn't be another person living who wore their heart as obviously on their sleeve as he did, quite possibly for Cath which was probably where she got it from.

Violent sobs came from both levels of the house, which Wren had heard before when it had gotten close to this bad but this time was already different; this time the sobs and wails weren't breaking so much as already broken. And their parents weren't crying because they were unsure of how to fix this, but because they didn't _want_ to fix it. And no one, not even they knew that then. But still they cried long after the doors had been closed and even longer after everything was beyond fixing.

* * *

Cath

Cath was still crying when Wren got up from her bed to climb into hers. She had been crying even before their mother had started, before the fight ended, heck before she'd realized it. And Wren knew it too. She always knew when Cath was crying. Because when Cath cried, Wren cried too. It was the only way she ever could. And when Wren cried, Cath knew things were bad. Because your older sister knew everything didn't she? Even if Wren had been on this earth only a minute longer than her, it was still sixty seconds worth of experience than Cath would ever have.

"Move over," Wren spoke into the semi-darkness, not giving a hint of the cracks in her voice. "and stop blubbering like a baby."

Cath made room for her sister, allowing her to slide under the covers, and for the remainder of the night they watched the nightlight flicker across the ugly brown blotches on their ceiling until they fell asleep to a broken house that rattled like wind when their mother inhaled and shook like thunder when their father exhaled.


End file.
